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FALSTAFF. You hear all these matters deni'd, gentlemen; you
hear it.

Enter MISTRESS ANNE PAGE with wine; MISTRESS
FORD and MISTRESS PAGE, following

PAGE. Nay, daughter, carry the wine in; we'll drink within.
Exit ANNE PAGE

SLENDER. O heaven! this is Mistress Anne Page.
PAGE. How now, Mistress Ford!

FALSTAFF. Mistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well
met; by your leave, good mistress. [Kisses her]

PAGE. Wife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a
hot venison pasty to dinner; come, gentlemen, I hope we

shall drink down all unkindness.
Exeunt all but SHALLOW, SLENDER, and EVANS

SLENDER. I had rather than forty shillings I had my Book of
Songs and Sonnets here.

Enter SIMPLE
How, Simple! Where have you been? I must wait on

myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles about you,
have you?

SIMPLE. Book of Riddles! Why, did you not lend it to Alice
Shortcake upon Allhallowmas last, a fortnight afore

Michaelmas?
SHALLOW. Come, coz; come, coz; we stay for you. A word

with you, coz; marry, this, coz: there is, as 'twere, a
tender, a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do

you understand me?
SLENDER. Ay, sir, you shall find me reasonable; if it be so, I

shall do that that is reason.
SHALLOW. Nay, but understand me.

SLENDER. So I do, sir.
EVANS. Give ear to his motions: Master Slender, I will

description the matter to you, if you be capacity of it.
SLENDER. Nay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says; I pray

you pardon me; he's a justice of peace in his country,
simple though I stand here.

EVANS. But that is not the question. The question is
concerning your marriage.

SHALLOW. Ay, there's the point, sir.
EVANS. Marry is it; the very point of it; to Mistress Anne

Page.
SLENDER. Why, if it be so, I will marry her upon any

reasonable demands.
EVANS. But can you affection the oman? Let us command to

know that of your mouth or of your lips; for divers philosophers
hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore,

precisely, can you carry your good will to the maid?
SHALLOW. Cousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

SLENDER. I hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that
would do reason.

EVANS. Nay, Got's lords and his ladies! you must speak possitable,
if you can carry her your desires towards her.

SHALLOW. That you must. Will you, upon good dowry,
marry her?

SLENDER. I will do a greater thing than that upon your request,
cousin, in any reason.

SHALLOW. Nay, conceive me, conceive me, sweet coz; what
I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?

SLENDER. I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there
be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease

it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and
have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon

familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say
'marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved,

and dissolutely.
EVANS. It is a fery discretion answer, save the fall is in the

ord 'dissolutely': the ort is, according to our meaning,
'resolutely'; his meaning is good.

SHALLOW. Ay, I think my cousin meant well.
SLENDER. Ay, or else I would I might be hang'd, la!

Re-enter ANNE PAGE
SHALLOW. Here comes fair Mistress Anne. Would I were

young for your sake, Mistress Anne!
ANNE. The dinner is on the table; my father desires your

worships' company.
SHALLOW. I will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne!

EVANS. Od's plessed will! I will not be absence at the grace.
Exeunt SHALLOW and EVANS

ANNE. Will't please your worship to come in, sir?
SLENDER. No, I thank you, forsooth, heartily; I am very

well.
ANNE. The dinner attends you, sir.

SLENDER. I am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth. Go,
sirrah, for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin

Shallow. [Exit SIMPLE] A justice of peace sometime may
be beholding to his friend for a man. I keep but three men

and a boy yet, till my mother be dead. But what though?
Yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

ANNE. I may not go in without your worship; they will not
sit till you come.

SLENDER. I' faith, I'll eat nothing; I thank you as much as
though I did.

ANNE. I pray you, sir, walk in.
SLENDER. I had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruis'd my

shin th' other day with playing at sword and dagger with
a master of fence-three veneys for a dish of stew'd prunes

-and, I with my ward defending my head, he hot my shin,
and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat

since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i' th'
town?

ANNE. I think there are, sir; I heard them talk'd of.
SLENDER. I love the sport well; but I shall as soon quarrel at

it as any man in England. You are afraid, if you see the
bear loose, are you not?

ANNE. Ay, indeed, sir.
SLENDER. That's meat and drink to me now. I have seen

Sackerson loose twenty times, and have taken him by the
chain; but I warrant you, the women have so cried and

shriek'd at it that it pass'd; but women, indeed, cannot
abide 'em; they are very ill-favour'd rough things.

Re-enter PAGE
PAGE. Come, gentle Master Slender, come; we stay for you.

SLENDER. I'll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.
PAGE. By cock and pie, you shall not choose, sir! Come,

come.
SLENDER. Nay, pray you lead the way.

PAGE. Come on, sir.
SLENDER. Mistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

ANNE. Not I, sir; pray you keep on.
SLENDER. Truly, I will not go first; truly, la! I will not do

you that wrong.
ANNE. I pray you, sir.

SLENDER. I'll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. You
do yourself wrong indeed, la! Exeunt

SCENE 2.
Before PAGE'S house

Enter SIR HUGH EVANS and SIMPLE
EVANS. Go your ways, and ask of Doctor Caius' house which

is the way; and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which
is in the manner of his nurse, or his dry nurse, or his cook,

or his laundry, his washer, and his wringer.
SIMPLE. Well, sir.

EVANS. Nay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter; for it is a
oman that altogether's acquaintance with Mistress Anne

Page; and the letter is to desire and require her to solicit
your master's desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you

be gone. I will make an end of my dinner; there's pippins
and cheese to come. Exeunt

SCENE 3.
The Garter Inn

Enter FALSTAFF, HOST, BARDOLPH, NYM, PISTOL, and ROBIN
FALSTAFF. Mine host of the Garter!

HOST. What says my bully rook? Speak scholarly and
wisely.

FALSTAFF. Truly, mine host, I must turn away some of my
followers.

HOST. Discard, bully Hercules; cashier; let them wag; trot,
trot.

FALSTAFF. I sit at ten pounds a week.
HOST. Thou'rt an emperor-Caesar, Keiser, and Pheazar. I

will entertain Bardolph; he shall draw, he shall tap; said I
well, bully Hector?

FALSTAFF. Do so, good mine host.
HOST. I have spoke; let him follow. [To BARDOLPH] Let me

see thee froth and lime. I am at a word; follow. Exit HOST
FALSTAFF. Bardolph, follow him. A tapster is a good trade;

an old cloak makes a new jerkin; a wither'd serving-man a
fresh tapster. Go; adieu.

BARDOLPH. It is a life that I have desir'd; I will thrive.
PISTOL. O base Hungarian wight! Wilt thou the spigot

wield? Exit BARDOLPH
NYM. He was gotten in drink. Is not the humour conceited?

FALSTAFF. I am glad I am so acquit of this tinder-box: his
thefts were too open; his filching was like an unskilful

singer-he kept not time.
NYM. The good humour is to steal at a minute's rest.

PISTOL. 'Convey' the wise it call. 'Steal' foh! A fico for the
phrase!

FALSTAFF. Well, sirs, I am almost out at heels.
PISTOL. Why, then, let kibes ensue.

FALSTAFF. There is no remedy; I must cony-catch; I must
shift.

PISTOL. Young ravens must have food.
FALSTAFF. Which of you know Ford of this town?

PISTOL. I ken the wight; he is of substance good.
FALSTAFF. My honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.

PISTOL. Two yards, and more.
FALSTAFF. No quips now, Pistol. Indeed, I am in the waist

two yards about; but I am now about no waste; I am about
thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to Ford's wife; I

spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she
gives the leer of invitation; I can construe the action of her

familiar style; and the hardest voice of her behaviour, to be
English'd rightly, is 'I am Sir John Falstaff's.'

PISTOL. He hath studied her well, and translated her will out
of honesty into English.

NYM. The anchor is deep; will that humour pass?
FALSTAFF. Now, the report goes she has all the rule of her

husband's purse; he hath a legion of angels.
PISTOL. As many devils entertain; and 'To her, boy,' say I.

NYM. The humour rises; it is good; humour me the angels.
FALSTAFF. I have writ me here a letter to her; and here

another to Page's wife, who even now gave me good eyes
too, examin'd my parts with most judicious oeillades;

sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my
portly belly.

PISTOL. Then did the sun on dunghill shine.
NYM. I thank thee for that humour.

FALSTAFF. O, she did so course o'er my exteriors with such
a greedyintention that the appetite of her eye did seem to

scorch me up like a burning-glass! Here's another letter to


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